


Colloportus

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Series: Prompt Responses [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Prompt Fic, Team Free Will, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 11:43:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://clotpoleofthelord.tumblr.com/">clotpoleofthelord</a>: "Sam locks Cas and Dean in the car and doesn’t let them out until they’ve worked out their tension."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colloportus

Dean throws the last of the bags in the trunk and closes it, then stands staring at Sam for a full minute. Sam is mumbling and he's got this charm out, swinging lightly from his fingers by a thin hemp strand. In his other hand is a book.

Dean is patient but then Cas finally stumbles out of the bunker carrying his books and another bag and Dean rolls his eyes. "Sammy. We ready?"

"Gimme another minute."

Sam starts the chant back from the beginning. He seems to fumble over the words, clears his throat, starts once more. It's like two full pages long. Dean watches Cas bundle himself into the car, books falling over the back seat and new glasses sliding down his nose. He trips over everything now. He's such a dork. He even scrambles into the backseat like there's a bully behind him shoving him into his locker.

Dean shakes his head in disgust.

"Hurry it up," he commands of Sam. He doesn't know why it's important to get the chant right before they even hit the road. Sam's got the entire drive to perfect whatever spell it is he's trying to sound out.

Dean jingles his keys and goes to get in the driver's seat.

Behind him, Cas is scrunched into the opposite corner of the car, nose already down in one of the tomes he brought. He's never looking anywhere but at dusty old pages anymore. Dean's sick of the motion he makes straightening his glasses on his face, he's sick of seeing the dark top of Cas's head and the hunch of his shoulders and the awful clumsiness with which he's trundled into human life.

Dean slams the car door closed and taps the wheel. Sam's still out there, but now he's, like, circling the car?

He moves around slowly, charm still danging from his fingers. Dean can't hear the softly spoken words but he can see Sam's lips move around the unfamiliar syllables.

When Sam stops back by the passenger side, he swings his own bag through the open window and into his seat.

He ducks down and asks Dean, "roll this up for me?"

And rises again to keep at the chant.

Dean rolls his eyes again, sick of everyone, but he reaches over and rolls Sam's window up, closing out his soft muttering completely.

Only, when the window closes, there's this sound like a vacuum seal, a sucking pop, and then nothing.

Dean pulls back to his side of the car. "What the--"

Sam bends again and taps on the glass of his window. He doesn't say anything, he just points down to the bag he'd tossed on the seat.

Dean points at it curiously. Sam nods.

Dean hauls the bag over and unzips it. Inside are snacks. A bag of pretzels and another of chips, loose little boxes of raisins and sticks of beef jerky, cans of soda, bottles of water.

Dean looks back up. Sam breathes on the outside of the window and in the chill of autumn, it fogs nice and wide.

Backwards, Sam writes "8 hrs" on the window. Gives a thumbs up.

And then descends back down the stairs and into the bunker.

"The fuck."

Dean grabs for the door handle to get out and follow, only no matter how hard he throws himself against the door, it doesn't open. He flings himself over and tries the passenger side door with the fog still on it.

Nothing. It doesn't budge.

"Cas," he barks, and Castiel looks over his book like he was afraid to be noticed behind it. "Try your door," Dean orders.

Cas reaches next to him and tries the door handle. It doesn't budge.

Cas tries to roll down his window. Still nothing.

Dean scrabbles at both window cranks now, cursing and laughing dark, like the promise of violence. "SAM," he finally shouts, kicking his own door. It still does nothing.

Cas slides over to the other side in the back seat and that door doesn't budge in any way, either.

"Son of a bitch." Dean really doesn't wanna do this.

He hesitates.  
Does it anyway.

He lays himself back down on the seat and kicks the heel of his boot into the glass of the passenger side window.

He puts all possible force behind it and he's pretty sure all it does is sprain his fucking ankle.

"WHAT THE FUCK??" Dean finally shouts. "Sam--" he remembers, yanks his cell phone out of his pocket and calls the first number on his speed dial.

"This is Sam, leave a messag--"

Dean hangs up, calls the number for the landline in the bunker. Sam answers after ten full rings, sighing.

"What, Dean?"

"GET OUT HERE, what the FUCK, Sam? Seriously! What did you do to my car?"

"It's perfectly fine. You'll be able to breathe. The air vents weren't affected and if you want to start the car and go anywhere, you can. You just shouldn't go far because you're not gonna be able to get out for gas for another seven hours and fifty-five minutes."

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME."

"Look. You and Cas have eight hours together now."

"Grrrreat," Dean's eyes are seriously gonna get Stuck That Way if he keeps with the eye rolling.

"That's eight hours to deal with whatever the hell has you at each other's throats so much. Eight hours to stop being such a dick. Eight hours to start learning to treat Cas with a little bit of fucking decency."

" _Decency_ are you goddamn KIDDING ME??!"

"I'll see you in eight hours, Dean. Deal with your shit." Sam slams the phone down and no amount of redialing helps. There are too many phones in the bunker to unhook them all, but Sam can easily shut himself in his own room until Dean's cell runs out of battery.

"Holy fuck." Dean finally tosses his cell phone down next to him. He looks up at the driveway down away from the bunker and considers starting the car. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpses Cas in the rear-view mirror.

Cas looks.

Cas looks scared.

Dean looks away.

He looks down at the keys sitting in the ignition and he decides to turn them.

The car starts as normal, like they're not fucking entombed inside her.

Three quarters of a tank left. Dammit.

He starts driving, but he doesn't go far.

«»

There are some small recreational fields just outside of town. Dean pulls up and there's just a few people around. Two boys practicing batting, taking turns tossing the ball. Two others playing basketball and a girl watching them from a bench on the side.

After a while, their cars take them away and the sun sets and Dean's temper is cooling. It's been two and a half hours already. Waiting this out is gonna be nothing. He can sleep through the rest of it once it gets dark enough.

Cas, on the other hand, he can still see out of the corner of his eye, in the mirror. He's squinting in the lowering light, still trying to read one of his books. Still pushing his thick-framed glasses closer to his face, frowning.

Dean can tell he's trying to look small, be unobtrusive. Castiel is back in the opposite corner again, acting like they're just on a cross-country drive.

And now that pisses him off, too. God _damnit_.

Whenever Dean moves, once to grab a soda, another the pretzels, another time to check his cell phone -- whenever he makes a move, Cas brings the book up, directly in front of his face. It almost looks like a casual move, the occasional readjustment for comfort. But it's plain that he's trying to spare Dean a look at his face.

Cas's face just makes Dean angry all the time now.

And he's got no explanation, but the fact that Cas figured it out before him and is taking precautionary measures to spare Dean the blood pressure spike--

Well, that hurts. It's embarrassing, too. He doesn't know why he's acting like this.

He's still angry, yeah. And justifiably so, thanks very much.

Cas went and destroyed an entire other realm. No bullshit, he brought down all of heaven because he went and trusted the wrong motherfucker again.

So, yeah, Dean's still pissed about that. Cas went and basically _made_ all these vulnerable little humans and on top of it, they've still got demons to deal with. Major ones. Military-grade demon warriors.

He can't _not_ feel angry about that.

It's just--

He looks in the rear-view mirror again. Cas is absorbed in trying to illuminate the text with the light from his cell phone. He doesn't see Dean watching him.

It's just that every time he looks at fragile, hapless, ridiculous little human Castiel, now, he can't help but think of Jimmy. Who was so different but still well-intentioned and still a colossal fuck-up for it.

He wonders if Jimmy ever wore glasses to see. If the man was near-sighted or if that's all Cas or if the light of heaven shining through damaged the vessel's eyes in some way.

He wonders, too, if Jimmy is still in there. And he's not happy that he's wanted so badly to ask that question.

The answer to it will be a problem no matter what. He's been over it. He knows that much already.

**Cas, is Jimmy Novak still in there?**

**Yes.**

Well, if yes, then there's two of you in there and that's either imprisonment or schizophrenia.

**Cas, is Jimmy Novak still in there?**

**No.**

Well, if no, then we fucking killed him with all we did. With every time that God brought you back -- or I did, through sheer force of _wanting_ you not to leave me alone--

_We killed him. Or I killed him. Or you killed him._

And then, that's just Cas in there.

All that skin and bones and Cas being nerdy and bookish and fumbling inside. Alone.

He almost asks, right then and there. But it's getting cold outside and his other jackets are locked up in the trunk. He wonders if there's some way to pry the back seat down and get into the trunk. Or better yet, get out through the door to it.

Cas's books are stacked on the other seat he's not occupying. His bag, too, and maybe he won't be shivering back there when sun sets because he at least thought to set his bag next to him.

Fuck.

What's wrong with him that he'd rather break the back seat or the goddamn windows than be in a car with Castiel?

Cas, who used to be, well, pretty much the closest thing to his best friend.

Cas has the book up in front of his face again, and by now, in the near-dark, he definitely can't see any of the words in the book.

Dean takes a deep breath and turns in his seat. He reaches up and snaps on the dome light.

Cas's eyes dart up in surprise, but he says his "thank you" down to the pages of the book.

Dean lets him read for another minute. He doesn't stop staring, though, so Cas has to look up eventually.

"You don't have to keep the light on for me. I can go to sleep," he offers.

No, Dean's lips say, but the word doesn't actually come out as he shakes his head.

At a loss, Cas licks his lips, pulls his book in tighter. "Sorry," he says.

"You don't have to keep saying that."

Castiel shrugs. "I keep getting in your way. I don't mean to."

Oh, man. That's awful.  
Dean's been really fucking awful to him.

Fuck, he was trying to _shut himself in with heaven_. He was trying to shut the door behind himself, no matter if he were tortured and killed. There's the Best Intentions and then there's Cas, fucking trying to make up for every sin _on the planet_.

Son of a bitch.

Dean brings his feet up into the seat in front of him. His fingers claw into his jeans, down over his knees and he takes a second to steel himself to finally ask.

"Hey, Cas. Is, uh. Listen," another deep breath. "Is Jimmy still in there with you?"

When Dean looks up, it's one quick shake of the head, followed by Cas closing the book, setting it aside. Then shaking his head once more, with finality.

"I don't know if he's. But he's. He's gone. Where he went, I can't say."

"So. Just you in there, huh?"

Cas nods. It looks like Dean's thrown 'er into reverse and backed over Cas again and again.

God, he is really bad at this.

"It wasn't your fault."

A laugh bursts out of Cas, a sharp, ugly thing. "Oh. Yeah. Okay."

"No. No, man. This wasn't. Christ. You had-"

"Good intentions?" Cas interrupts, self-loathing painting fucking everything. And what comes next rolls out like Cas had no choice in the matter. "You hate me all over again. They all hate me and you hate me. Most of all. And you have to live with me. Work with me."

Dean watches the tears come, stuck for anything to do about it, frozen in place.

Cas pulls the sleeve of his sweater over his hand and lifts his glasses to palm dry his eyes. "You hate me most of all and you're stuck with me and I don't know what to do. I'm terrible. And you hate me. And I've killed everyone."

Oh, God. Dean is crawling over the seat and hushing him before he can even think about it. Cas is a lump in the corner of the seat and pressed tight to the door. He's cold flesh and crying and all alone back there until Dean hauls him in, brackets Cas with his legs and speaks total nonsense into his hair. Like, _I don't hate you, I've never hated you, I couldn't, I don't, I love you, me an' Sam we love you, you're our family, don't be stupid, you gotta stop it, this isn't-- you're gonna be fine._

Dean wishes he could tell Sam-- or rather wishes he didn't have to tell Sam _anything_.

But if he were to tell Sam, he wished he could say the stupid spell worked and they sat in the Impala half the night until the thing wore off. That they talked and made it all okay. That they're friends again and better: family. The way it's supposed to be.

But one night, one little curse can't fix everything.

It comes in fits and starts. While they're better when they drive back to the bunker to get some sleep, they're not perfect. They set out in the morning for the hunt they were supposed to go on. And they're better about sharing space. The air is missing its tension and there's a hell of a lot less eye rolling.

But when it really happens is later. The day after the hunt, in the diner, on the way home, when Dean could be in the booth beside his brother, but he sits next to Cas, instead, and lets Cas cut his steak up for him since his other hand got so sliced up. Cas takes on the task of re-bandaging it for the duration. When Dean thanks him, it's sincere.

It happens when they go back to the optical outlet and get new nose-pads put on Cas's glasses so he's not fussing with them all the time. And when Dean buys him a book light so he can read in the car at night.

It happens months later, when Dean can't be angry anymore, is exhausted from it. So exhausted he hauls Cas to his bed to have a nap and wakes up with his fingers in dark hair and a body tight against him.

It doesn't happen like magic. But it does happen.


End file.
